I popped onto YouTube the other day and while looking for something completely different, I found a link to an interview with Nikola Tesla. Sadly, not a recorded interview as those inventions were not available 120 years ago. Anyway, the interview was over an hour long – originally appearing in print but someone recorded it for the modern audience.

I didn’t have time to listen so I randomly clicked through the video. I stopped at a point where Tesla was explaining that everything is light. You, me, the trees in the churchyard where I’m sitting writing this post, the clouds, the moon and even coffee cup are all light.

Light can be both a particle and a wave. Light is awesome and that’s a fact.

I’m not a physicist nor even a remotely competent wannabe scientist but as a witch, light being everything makes sense to me. Obviously, I’m not the only one who feels this way because over recent years there has been a rise of the lightworker.

I love the idea of being a warrior for the light. It’s like being a Jedi but not in a galaxy far, far away.

However, light has somehow become a bit fluffy. It’s as if by spreading light, it will destroy all the darker parts of life. Perhaps it can but I just don’t feel all angel-cuddly and affirmation-happy. For me, the human experience is about coming into the light but you can’t do that until you face the darkness.

If I were to put myself in either the lightworker or shadow-worker camp, I’d be playing in the shadows. I am an eternal optimist, I’m down to earth and I have, so I’ve been told, a comforting energy about me. Yet, I resonate with the shadows and the darkest, painful parts of experience. I understand pain, fears, depression, apathy and unhappiness.

You may not know this but I love the sea. I might even be a little obsessed. The sea goddess whose story is special in my heart is Inuit Sedna. She has a tragic story. Her father betrayed her, cut off her fingers so she could no longer cling to the side of his boat and she sank to the bottom of the icy cold sea. She turned into a goddess – her fingers transformed into sea creatures. She is abundance. Shamans visit her to brush her hair and to keep her happy because without her generosity, the Inuits will starve. Sedna, alone in the darkness, gifts life.

It’s the challenging experiences and the deep emotions we feel that give us our strengths. It is, as old schoolers would say, character building.

In the New Age, we are being shepherded away from the dark. There’s a tendency to whitewash over the pain of living by painting over our day with affirmations, positive quotes, and a belief we just have to pretend we’re happy then so it will be.

I am not criticising affirmations or positivity (remember, I am the eternal optimist) but we need help to reach these places. For many of us, we can’t switch off our memories or dumb down our feelings to the point of non-existence. Say affirmations, please do, but don’t neglect the work that goes along with them to make them effective.

For example: “I attract money from expected and unexpected sources.” Yes! And I’d like some of this too. But it’s going to be difficult to really, really feel the affirmation if you don’t believe it. Beliefs are held in our energy system and limiting or negative beliefs get stuck there too. You won’t find money showing up randomly if you believe you’re not worthy, incapable of managing money, not lucky enough etc. etc.

The limiting beliefs we carry around are often strange, not even true, but they are powerful enough to alter our reality. It’s then you have to dive deep into your inner world to find the reasons why your belief exists and whether it is a benefit to you.

I am a lightworker of sorts but you’ll find me in the shadows. There is a place for shadow-workers – the wounded healers of the world – that know treasures are hidden in the deepest and darkest of places.

Lyn Thurman is a witch and priestess on the south coast of England. She's the author of The Inner Goddess Revolution and Goddess Rising, and the creator of the Sea Whispers oracle. When she's not writing, she is breathing magic into business through Biz-Witchery (or obsessing over vegan cakes). You can read more about the author here.